The Man He Killed Summary
Thomas Hardy

The Man He Killed Overview

“The Man He Killed” is a dramatic monologue by English poet and novelist Thomas Hardy. As in several of his other poems, Hardy espouses an anti-war message – he wrote many of these poems to criticize the senseless destruction of the Boer War and, later, World War I. In “The Man He Killed,” the first-person narrator imagines that, had he met man he ended up killing in a peaceful setting, they would have sat down to share a meal and friendly conversation.